In a world where we are constantly bombarded by data and information, many of us have lost the capacity to think strategically. Just trying to keep up to date on current events means that we are often in reaction mode. This leads to short-termism in our solutions. Being strategic requires time for contemplation, and in our daily working routines, we often find ourselves time-poor.
Events in Ukraine during 2022 and the chilling accounts of war demonstrate how warfare has been redefined into a hybrid model. ‘Hybrid war’ refers to the fact that wars are no longer won purely on the battlefield, as conflicts play out through subversion, sanctions, memes, lawfare, disinformation, and state-sponsored murder, in addition to on-the-ground fighting.1 In an environment where everything can be weaponised, businesses may find themselves on the front line of economic guerrilla warfare, battling cyberattacks, political lobbying, social media manipulation, and sanctions impacting their business models. Mark Galeotti, in The Weaponisation of Everything, has a stark vision of the future:
We are heading into an age when everyone may be in at least some kind of a state of ‘war' with everyone else, all the time, and it is just a matter of degree. Of course, we will still have allies and enemies, but these terms will mean different things at different times, in different contexts. Our very vocabulary is outdated: war, enemy, victory, all these concepts need to be re-thought. Welcome to a potential world of permanent, sublimated conflict, of the political struggle of all against all.2
The hybrid warfare model is just one element of the complex, unstable world we live in. As organisations now find themselves on the front lines, more than ever they require strategic thinking to build fluidity into their strategies and business models. Strategic thinking can no longer be considered a tick box exercise in an annual planning cycle.
Lawrence Freedman, in his book Strategy: A history, describes a strategist as
a student of the present who must be aware of the past, sensitive to the possibilities of the future, conscious of the danger of bias, alert to ambiguity, alive to chaos, ready to think through the consequences of alternative courses of action, and then able to articulate all this with sufficient precision for those who must execute its prescriptions.3
The abilities described by Freedman encapsulate the component parts of a strategic thinking mindset. As finance professionals, our comfort zone is precision; however, strategic thinking requires us to work with ambiguity and complexity. Jeremy Black, in Military Strategy: A Global History, explores the need to move away from precision:
Moreover, it can be too easy to mistake precision about terms for analysis, while such precision is not necessarily a prelude to successful analysis ... . Rather than thinking in terms of clearly defined systems, it is more pertinent to focus on complexes or bundles of institutional-practical ways of doing things, and in a context of fitness for purpose.4
At the heart of a strategic thinking mindset is the need to define an organisation’s interests, understand the problems and challenges it faces, and determine future directional paths and goals. This, in turn, requires nonlinear thinking together with collaboration and collective discussions. It is also important to remember, as Jeremy Black highlights, ‘Crucially, strategy is not a document but a practice.’5
First, we need to understand how strategy and strategic thinking became business competencies. ‘Strategic thinking’ as we know it today — that is, an intentional and thoughtful approach to strategy and planning — was first developed and tested in a military environment before crossing over into the business world.6 The crossover happened during the 1950s and 1960s when businesses started to focus on establishing long-term, goal-oriented strategic activity that would change organisational capacity. Therefore, if we understand the impact of current military advances on strategic thinking, we can anticipate strategic trends coming to the business world.
Tim Stobierski, writing for Harvard Business School, highlights the importance of the ‘how to’ of a strategic thinking mindset:
The advantage of having a strategic mindset is learning how to think rather than what to think. Although you might not always have the right answers, strategic thinking skills can empower you to spot new opportunities, address emerging challenges, and plan for future success.7
